Ice Ship: The Epic Voyages of the Polar Adventurer Fram

by Charles W. Johnson

  Also, Nansen confided that “it became more and more of a riddle to me that we did not make greater progress northwards.”22 (His statement is a bit puzzling, as much as he was aware of Arctic Ocean currents.) He quickly proposed a solution to the riddle, which perhaps should have been obvious, as it would be to the unfortunate Salomon Andrée the following year, that “the ice was moving southward, and that in its capricious drift, at the mercy of wind and current, we had our worst enemy to combat.”

  With all these, plus trying to figure how far away Franz Josef Land was (450 miles) and how long it would take them to get there with spring bringing deteriorating sledging conditions, Nansen, the personification of rational strategist, had plenty of reason for not continuing. It was one of his most admirable qualities, to offset some less so: though he may have craved it, no glory, no matter how big the prize nor how close to attainment, was worth the risk of even one life when he knew the odds were so much against him. On April 8, after not quite a month into the trip, Nansen “determined to stop, and shape our course for Cape Fligely [the most northern extent then known of Franz Josef Land].”23 They had reached 86°13.6’ north, 260 miles from the pole. There was a prize after all, a new “farthest north” on the globe, for any person, anywhere, of all time. What they would have no way of knowing then, of course, was that seven months later the Fram would be carried to within a few miles of that record, then and still “farthest north” for a wooden ship.

  Though the days were lengthening and warming as they made their way south, bringing relief from frigidity and gloom, the journey did not get any easier. New problems would merely take the place of those left behind. The traveling surface turned slushy in places under the stronger sun, making it miserable going for the weary dogs and men. On occasion they, men or dogs, even fell though hidden, melted potholes or gaps in the ice, into the bone-numbing sea. Leads appeared with increasing frequency, size, and complexity, requiring much time and long forays to scout the way through. The dogs, dwindling in number as they went on, were becoming progressively weaker and harder to encourage, or force, to go on. Before, when it was super cold, the days at least were mostly sunny and calm, but now, in April and May, they were often overcast; sodden with fog, wet snow, and freezing rain; or sometimes punishing with high winds, all dampening the men’s spirits and keeping them tent bound for long periods of time. They would have willingly exchanged those days, when temperatures might rise above 32 degrees Fahrenheit, for the hard, deep subzero ones earlier, when at least the traveling did not get so bogged down.

  Whether due to exhaustion or simply because there was too much to do, they began to forget things, some critically important. Once Nansen left a compass behind, and because it was necessary for position finding and navigation, he spent several hours retracing his steps to find it. Even more serious, however, was when both men forgot to wind their watches after sleeping too long following a tiring day. It was a grave lapse, since it meant from then on they had no way of knowing exactly where they were. Precise longitudinal locations by celestial navigation could only be made in conjunction with the exact time. Otherwise, it could only be an approximation, or worse, a guess. Most of us could not begin imagine what it would feel like to be in such a circumstance: utterly alone in such a complete wilderness, where no one had ever been before, and without maps to show where they were or where they were going. There, little errors or miscalculations might mean catastrophe, in any number of ways: sudden death in the water or a slow one by freezing, starvation, or scurvy; attack by polar bears or walruses; stranded or lost on the ice; adrift or lost at sea; strangled by fear and terror; going crazy by degrees; or all of these at once. And what would happen if one of them should fall ill or be injured? Now, the gnawing uncertainty about where they really were plagued the men, these two tiny pinpoints in an unforgiving, seemingly endless, immensity.

  But on they went through April and into May, navigating the fragmented pack as best they could, while the further south they inched the more their eyes searched the horizon for land. Land would be their oasis, its bedrock the anchor they needed to extricate themselves from the melting, shifting, drifting ice, before it was too late and the seasons turned to winter. Another National Day, May 17, came and went without the ceremonial, communal looking back as on the Fram. Instead, they had their private nostalgic remembrances and worries about the dogs in their steadily dying numbers, their own wearing out from the struggle, and the real possibility of being carried by the ice too far west and missing land entirely, to face an open ocean.

  The days wore on through May, and there was still no sign of land. They were deceived by mirages that would rise over this icy desert or mistake distant low clouds for mountains. Disappointment would yield to despair, but they clung to the hopes they had. They were making progress, however torturous, so that Nansen consoled, “At last then we have come down to latitudes which have been reached by human beings before us, and it cannot possibly be far to land.”24 They began to see life, or signs of it: narwhals surfacing in the bigger leads, polar bear and fox tracks on the floes, then a fulmar flying overhead, then a ringed seal lying on the ice, and later more and different birds, even a fish. So there would be a chance of getting food if theirs ran out. On the horizon dark sky would appear more frequently, not fleetingly but steady and unmoving, a far-distant indication of land or open water.

  June arrived. Only six worn-out dogs were left, and food was getting low. Still no land was anywhere ahead, and with each passing day without the sight of it, their apprehension grew. As if to quell fear and conjure up what they needed, they took to repairing the kayaks, the only means they had to escape the ice and get to land when it appeared, whatever and wherever it was. The rough-and-tumble sledge rides had been hard on the kayaks, with the covers holed and seams split, and ribs cracked or broken. With precious little replacement stock on hand, they had to be creative with alternatives (for example, to seal the seams they used a made-up compound of the stove’s blubber oil, soot from its burning, and Nansen’s drawing pastels crushed into powder). It was slow and exacting work to get them tight and strong again, these fragile, tippy vessels that would have to carry them and everything they had, and absolutely needed to survive, dry and safe over lethally cold waters, for who knew how long or under what conditions.

  Nansen’s diary entry from June 11 (in Farthest North) encapsulates, in a poetic sort of way, the desperation and desolation they felt about the predicament they were in with yet an underlying appreciation for life itself:

  No sign of land in any direction and no open water, and now we should be in the same latitude as Cape Fligely [on Franz Josef Land], or at most a couple of minutes farther north. We do not know where we are, and we do not know when this will end. Meanwhile our provisions are dwindling day by day, and the number of our dogs is growing seriously less. Shall we reach land while we yet have food; or shall we, when it is all said, ever reach it! It will soon be impossible to make any way against this ice and snow: the latter is only slush, the dogs sink through at every step; and we ourselves splash through it up above our knees when we have to help the dogs or take a turn at the heavy sledges, which happens frequently. It is hard to go on hoping in such circumstances, but still we do so; though sometimes, perhaps, our hearts fail us when we see the ice lying before us like an impenetrable maze of ridges, lanes, brash, and huge blocks thrown together pell-mell, and one might imagine one’s self looking at suddenly congealed breakers. . . . But then, in spite of everything, one finds a way, and hope springs eternal. Let the sun peep out a moment from the bank of clouds, and the ice-plains glitter in all their whiteness; let the sunbeams play on the water, and life seems beautiful in spite of all, and worthy a struggle.

  It had been three months since leaving the Fram, when they had imagined themselves long since home. But here they were, in their tent on the pack, confined by a spell of heavy snow. They slept a good deal to kill time, but Nansen spent long hours trying to figure and refigure w
here they were, going over what data he had and holding an internal debate of all the possibilities and likelihoods. He reluctantly accepted the possibility that they were too far west and would miss Franz Josef Land completely, and thus face a long open-sea traverse to Svalbard. His main concern was not the journey itself but, before they set out, getting enough game they would need crammed into the interior of the kayaks.

  June was drawing to a close, and on they trudged, with dwindling rations and fuel, with only three dogs left, and through heavy wet snow that stuck to skis and sledge runner and made traveling a misery, only to confront either nasty pressure ridge barriers or increasingly numerous lanes around which they had to detour at great expense of time and labor. Finally, they decided to speed up their advance by paddling down or across the bigger lanes—at some risk to the kayak skins from the abrasion of brash (loose, fragmented ice)—with the kayaks side by side and the skis lashed to them as cross-struts, the sledges athwartships at the bows and sterns, and the dogs riding atop them. Then, while in this mode of ferrying, a serendipitous event happened: a large bearded seal surfaced near the kayaks, which Johansen was able to shoot and Nansen harpoon to keep from sinking. Within the blink of an eye their fortunes and prospects changed; from a state of want they suddenly had enough food for a month.

  They needed yet more speed if they were to get free of the ice in time, so they discarded everything they could to make the sledges lighter, keeping only what was essential: food, guns, ammunition, necessary equipment, and barest clothing. Everything else went: extra tent, spare skis, winter clothes, first aid kit, and even the precious sleeping bag they had shared. From then on they would be making do with lightweight summer garb and camping equipment, and eating what they killed. If they were not able to escape by fall, they would have to stop in time to find or build a new shelter on land they had yet to see, gather food by their guns and stockpile enough for the long winter, and make new blankets, sleeping bags, boots, and clothes from the hides of animals they shot. It was yet another version of a Nansen trademark, another “gå fram.”

  Troubles came in unexpected ways. Once, when attempting to secure another harpooned bearded seal, their rig partially capsized, and Johansen’s kayak filled with water before the whole assemblage of kayaks, sledges, dogs, Johansen, and bearded seal could be hauled up on the ice; fortunately, the soaking only caused the loss of some gunpowder and flour. Another time the blubber and oil in the cooking lamp caught fire, filling the tent with choking smoke and burning holes in it, before the men escaped and then managed to extinguish the fire before everything went up in flames. One of the sledge/kayak sails had to be sacrificed to patch the gaping holes.

  Mostly it was boredom and impatience as they waited for the snow to melt so they could make better time, or time at all, and as they strained their eyes continually to catch that first longed-for glimpse of land. “Here we lie far up in the north,” Nansen bemoaned in Farthest North, “two grim, black, soot-stained barbarians, stirring a mess of soup in a kettle, and surrounded on all sides by ice; by ice and nothing else—shining and white, possessed of all the purity we ourselves lack.” The appearance of polar bears was both a break from the drudgery and a welcome refilling of their larder.

  After another tough stretch of days against ridges and through slush, while zigzagging around or paddling down or across lanes, they stopped to reconnoiter from the vantage of a tall hummock. Then came the discovery: “Wednesday, July 24th. At last the marvel has come to pass—land, land, and after we had almost given up our belief in it! . . . Drift-white, it arches above the horizon like distant clouds, which one is afraid will disappear every [any] minute. The most wonderful thing is that we have seen this land all the time without knowing it.”25 Its distant whiteness they had first thought to be snowfields and then, because it appeared to change shape, clouds (the movement was probably due to mirage-like wavering of ever-present mists). Now, through the telescope, Nansen saw what he had not seen before: a long band of black between the horizon and the supposed “clouds,” the black of rock beneath the white of snow-capped peaks.

  Even though they were energized by their first sight of land in two years, their slog and grind continued. They had estimated reaching the land in a day or two, but the eastward drift of the ice took them away from their goal instead of toward it, and the land receded rather than drawing nearer. Chilling rain came in ceaseless torrents, forcing them to stop and camp, as now they had no change of clothes to keep warm. Nansen was laid low for several days by debilitating, severe lower back pain, leaving Johansen to do all the work.

  July yielded to August, with the same miserable conditions, their hard-won gains still being mostly offset by discouraging losses. On August 5, they had another close call. After hard sledging over heaved-up blocks, in dense fog, they came to a lane they had to cross in their kayaks. With Johansen waiting, Nansen began to place his sledge across the doubled-up kayaks but heard a “scuffle” behind him and then Johansen yelling, “Get the gun!” Nansen whirled around to see Johansen on his back, a huge polar bear atop him. He rushed to the kayak where his rifle lay in its case on deck, but just then the kayak slipped into the water, away from him. As he struggled to pull the heavy kayak back on the ice, he again heard Johansen’s voice behind him, this time a quiet exhortation: “Look sharp, if you want to be in time.”

  The bear had sneaked up on them from behind and, as Nansen was busy loading the sledge, had given Johansen a swipe on the head with its mighty paw (a big bear’s front paw can weigh as much as forty pounds), sending him sprawling, and then pounced on him. With one free hand and all his strength, Johansen grabbed the bear by the throat and held him off as best he could, while the bear snapped at his head. It was at that very moment that Johansen, somehow calmly, urged Nansen to “look sharp.” Then, just as suddenly, the bear pulled back from Johansen as it turned to face the dogs attacking it. Nansen by then had freed his gun and, just as Johansen wiggled away, killed the bear with one shot. “The only harm done,” Nansen wrote later with a bit of gallows humor, “was that the bear had scraped some grime off Johansen’s right cheek, so that he has a white stripe on it, and had given him a slight wound in one hand.”26

  Finally, a day later, they reached the edge of the ice; ahead, there was open water and across it the land they had been aiming for the past two weeks. They cheered, then had a piece of chocolate to celebrate. It was also a sad occasion, a parting of ways. The remaining two faithful, durable dogs, Nansen’s Kaifas and Johansen’s Suggen, would not be accompanying them any further. The other dogs had been killed by knife to save precious bullets, but these last two would be an exception. To spare yet more anguish, each shot the other’s dog, out of sight.

  Off they went side by side in their strapped-together kayaks, first paddling then rigging a sail to take advantage of a following wind, with delight in the unaccustomed swiftness and sensations of movement across water instead of ice. Soon they reached the long-sought land, actually to the sheer face of a fifty-foot-high glacier wall off its shore. They skirted the glacier westward a good distance, looking for a break where they could camp on land but, finding none, resorted to the old familiar, an ice floe. For the next two days they worked their way west and south along the glacier, sometimes dragging their kayak-bearing sledges over floes the winds packed together whimsically, but mostly paddling or sailing their sledge-bearing kayaks in open water.

  They did not know if the land they passed, with its involutions and indentations receding into mist and fog much of the time, was an island, a group of islands, or a part of something bigger. In his diary and Farthest North, Nansen confessed that “this land grows more of a problem, and I am more than ever at a loss to know where we are.” He thought it might be the west coast of Franz Josef Land, trending south; Nansen put his knowledge as a biologist to use, because they had been seeing a great number of the rare Ross’s gull, a species not known to occur in nearby Svalbard.

  FIGURE 45

  Wh
en Nansen and Johansen reached the edge of the pack ice, only Johansen’s favorite dog Suggen (shown here) and Nansen’s Kaifas were left. Before the men got into their kayaks to paddle on, they had to kill the dogs. To be merciful, each shot the other’s, out of sight of the owner. Photograph by Fridtjof Nansen.

  As they hauled and paddled their feeling way along, they encountered walruses and seals in great numbers, and with the multitude of bear tracks they saw, they knew at least they would not want for food. Walruses in the water they feared for their aggressiveness, especially against thin-skinned kayaks. Several times the big beasts shocked them by bumping the boats violently from below, threatening to capsize or hole them with their tusks. But on the ice, walruses were defenseless and provided plenty of easy food, in one huge package, though it was not the men’s favorite.

  It was by now the middle of August, and the time was fast approaching when they would have to make a decision: keep going blindly on, in hopes of reaching Svalbard before winter, or find a place to spend the winter, set up camp, and begin gathering food. The first choice, if they were wrong, would likely end in suffering and tragedy; the second, another long winter holed up but more likely with survival. In either case, they needed to move on more quickly than they had. To speed up their progress by water, they separated the kayaks so each man could paddle independently (though while sailing they stayed bound together). At the same time they had to cut the big sledges down proportionately, so that each kayak could carry a lighter, stubbier sledge.

  On August 14, after more days of their halting, amphibious travel, they reached the ice-free shore of an island and “for the first time in two years had bare land under foot.”27 Like children released from school, they reveled in newfound, or rediscovered, freedom, hopping on boulders, feeling and hearing the gravel underfoot, and seeing tiny Arctic flowers in bloom in their refuges between the rocks. After a couple of days there, they pressed on, arriving at another island that Nansen described almost innocently as “one of the most lovely spots on the face of the earth.” It must have seemed so, compared to what they had lived with for so long. The island had an extensive, flat, shell-covered beach; sea urchins and snails in the clear shallows; birds of many kinds, flying and crying on the cliffs and along the shore; and bearded seals popping up offshore. There was life all around, in brilliant sunshine!